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Separations
Special Issues
Sustainable Biological Removal and Separation Processes in Wastewater Treatment
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Sustainable Biological Removal and Separation Processes in Wastewater Treatment

A special issue of Separations (ISSN 2297-8739). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Separations".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 September 2025 | Viewed by 667

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Xin Zhou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Environment and Ecology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Interests: sustainable biological wastewater treatment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Shouqing Ni

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
Interests: biological wastewater treatment technology
Prof. Dr. Guoqiang Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Environment, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
Interests: biological nitrogen removal; N2O production and control; anammox; dynamic membrane bioreactor
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of energy crisis and climate warming, global wastewater treatment facilities are facing unprecedented challenges. It is of utmost importance to develop novel and sustainable wastewater treatment technologies. For organic and nutrient removal, innovative bio-processes, such as aerobic granular sludge (AGS), membrane-aerated biofilm reactors (MABRs),moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBRs), and autotrophic nitrogen removal (e.g., anammox and sulfur-autotrophic denitrification), have received great attention. Separation-based technologies including Membrane Bio-reactors (MBRs) have also been widely applied in wastewater purification. Moreover, efficient removal for trace-level emerging pollutants (such as microplastics and PFAS) and the control for direct carbon emission (CH4 and N2O) have become major concerns for future wastewater treatment plants. These aspects are subjects of interest in this Special Issue, titled ‘Sustainable Biological Removal and Separation Processes in Wastewater Treatment’.

Therefore, it is our pleasure to invite you to contribute your research articles, communication, or reviews to this Special Issue dedicated to biological treatment, separation purification, and pollutant removal from wastewater.

Prof. Dr. Xin Zhou
Prof. Dr. Shouqing Ni
Prof. Dr. Guoqiang Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Separations is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wastewater treatment and reclamation
  • biological nutrient removal
  • separation and purification
  • emerging pollutant removal
  • carbon footprint mitigation
  • resource recovery

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 2448 KB  
Article
Ultrafiltration of Water Has a Temporary Effect on Cell Numbers, but Profoundly Changes the Composition of Bacterial Populations—The ‘Reset’ Phenomenon
by Benjamin H. Meyer, Bernd Bendinger, Martin Hippelein and Andreas Nocker
Separations 2025, 12(8), 213; https://doi.org/10.3390/separations12080213 - 15 Aug 2025
Viewed by 424
Abstract
Ultrafiltration strips water of bacteria. The common misconception is that the filtrate is thus free of bacteria. This only applies, however, in the case that the filtrate compartment is sterile. In real-world applications, the filtrate is rapidly re-colonized, followed by regrowth. In extreme [...] Read more.
Ultrafiltration strips water of bacteria. The common misconception is that the filtrate is thus free of bacteria. This only applies, however, in the case that the filtrate compartment is sterile. In real-world applications, the filtrate is rapidly re-colonized, followed by regrowth. In extreme cases of low water usage, the cell numbers in the filtrate can even exceed those in the feed water, probably due to a combination of the microbial enrichment of the bulk water from surfaces, regrowth in the water body itself, and nutrient enrichment on the filter membrane. Regrowth is made possible because dissolved nutrients can freely pass through the membranes. This explains why the initial decrease in cell numbers in drinking water installation systems with ultrafiltration is often followed by an increase in the periphery of the plumbing system. The extent of actual regrowth hereby depends mostly on water usage behaviours. A shorter frequency of membrane wash cycles is beneficial for reducing cell numbers. Neither frequent wash cycles nor cleaning in place (CIP) in filtration units, however, seem to modulate the maximal regrowth potential. Although the effect of ultrafiltration on cell numbers is not sustainable, it causes profound changes in the bacterial communities, with highly distinct populations in the feed water and the filtrate. The microbiological “reset” is demonstrated using examples both from the fields of drinking water and water reuse. Overall, our results suggest that ultrafiltration has a profound impact on the microbiome, but the cell numbers in filtrates depend mostly on the water usage and operational conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Biological Removal and Separation Processes in Wastewater Treatment)
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